Vardala stepped warily into the back room of the inn, closing the door carefully behind her, as she had been instructed. The room was dark, heavy shutters closed across the only window. Outside, the sun would already be dipping towards the horizon, but the intent was not just to keep light out but to stop passers-by from looking in.
The rogue made out a shape standing next to the unlit fireplace, and could sense its eyes on her. She said nothing, waiting for the figure to make the first move. After a long silence, it did so, reaching forward across a low table to pull back a shutter from some metal object placed there.
A whitish-blue light spilled across the table, shining into her face. She had seen such things before; a metal box with a narrow shutter at one side, and a rod inside enchanted with a long-lasting light spell. It was safer than a regular lantern, and almost never needed refuelling. Because of its shape, the light poured out in only one direction, and the figure standing behind it was more in the shadow than ever, now that her eyes could not adjust to the darkness.
"The prodigal returns," said the figure, his voice calm, with a rich timbre.
She could just about make out that he was wearing a cloak, further obscuring his shape, and, perhaps more significantly, that he was, like her, a gnome. Not that it mattered, for she recognised the voice, knew that this was, indeed, the man she had come to meet.
"I haven't betrayed the Guild," she said, defiantly, trying not to squint too obviously in the light directed at her. "I work outside the city now."
"As an adventurer, yes; I well recall that. Are you not ever tempted to return to your old ways? To rejoin the fold?"
"I don't need to. I have enough."
"Enough to abandon us?" the voice was stern, critical, "It seems it must be so, since this is the first time you have entered Guild premises in... what, over two years now? I am sure you remember the date as well as I. Or was it not important to you?"
"It's not an abandonment, merely a change. I haven't done anything wrong, not by the Guild's laws. I have just taken a different path."
"One that means you no longer need us," the voice was sharply critical, and Vardala began to wonder if she had done the right thing in coming here. Clearly there were deeper wounds over her departure than she had thought. In retrospect, that should perhaps have been more obvious.
"So, you no longer need the family that helped raise you, from your teenage years, at least. The family that taught you the skills you know rely on, whether within our purview or not. The Guild is a lifelong commitment, not just something you pop in and out of at your convenience. Had you forgotten that?"
"I'm not here to offer my services."
"But you need us for something, don't you? Something has brought you back to us again. What I am trying to establish is why you should think we have the slightest interest in helping you."
"Because I have money. Which is, in the end, what the Guild is about acquiring, isn't it?"
"Oh, money?" the voice sneered, and its owner leaned forward, resting his hands on the table, and allowing some of the light to spill onto his cloak, though still leaving his face in shadow, "What makes you think I'd be interested in that, from you?"
"Because I know you, Shadow-knife," she used the assassin's codename, the one she had employed to get access to this private room, to get audience with the man.
"Perhaps I've changed," he said, sounding a little defensive for the first time, and leaning back out of the light. "None of us stays the same forever. The Guild has moved on without you, you know."
"But you haven't, have you?" she said, taking a step forward, emboldened as she saw that she might be getting beneath the other rogue's cool exterior. "That's what this is all about, isn't? These shadows and your attempted intimidation? I can tell you now that it isn't going to work, not with me."
"Everything isn't always about you!" snapped Shadow-knife, banging the table and leaning forward into the light again. This time, she could see more of his face, the sharp nose and neat little goatee, a flash of his teeth as he all but snarled at her.
"But it is this time, isn't it? You're still pissed off. Well, whatever -- you should just get over it. I've had enough of being messed about. All I want is a little information, and I'm willing to pay for it. Are you going to help me, or not?"
"You couldn't pay what I'd want!"
His voice was raised, sounding dangerous, and Vardala wondered if she'd pushed him too far. He was a skilled killer, after all, and a trusted official of the Guild. But her frustration at the way he was acting, when she so badly needed vengeance for what that inhuman thing had done, overwhelmed her common sense.
"You don't know what I've got to offer!" she snapped back, "so stop being such a bloody child about it."
"You know exactly what it is I want," he growled, and stepped out from behind the table, lunging for her.
She raised her left hand instinctively to ward him off, her right reaching for her concealed knife. But he was too quick, and took her head in both hands, kissing her passionately on the lips.
Forgetting the knife, she took a step back and slapped him as hard as she could across the face.
The sound of the slap seemed to echo across the room; it had been a really good one. Shadow-knife staggered back a pace, almost bumping into the table, reaching out a hand to steady himself.
"Damn -- that really hurt," he said, making no further movement, "shit! Vardala, you pack a mean hand, these days." He gave a bitter little laugh, "I guess you haven't changed so much."
"Well, you deserved it, Skort."
He winced slightly at the use of his real name, but then seemed to relax, all his thunder and bluster gone. "Yeah, I guess," he muttered at last, leaning back against the table, and rubbing his cheek, the hood of his cloak pushed back slightly to reveal his close-cropped black hair. "Where did we go so wrong?"
"You couldn't accept that I had my own life. Looks like you still can't."
"Hey, that's not fair. I had a lot of things to do when I moved up in the Guild. I could have done with some more support, too. It's not like it was one sided."
She shrugged, "perhaps. But I couldn't be there all the time. Like I said, I have my own life now."
Skort adjusted the magical lantern, widening the aperture so that more light spilled into the room, although it still wasn't much.
"You look the same as ever," he commented, "as if it was yesterday. You shouldn't have left me."
"You said it yourself a moment ago -- nobody stays the same forever. We were over, it wasn't working. I thought you'd have learned to live with it by now. It's been two years."
"Yeah, it has," he said, rubbing his face and staring into the darkness of the ceiling, "But it was good while it lasted... I mean, it was, wasn't it?"
"Yeah... yeah, it was."
He sighed deeply, "well... you wanted to ask me something," he said eventually, "You might as well go ahead."
"Somebody stole something from me," said Vardala, "and I want to know who that is." She didn't add that she wanted revenge on that person for hurting Horvan, for nearly killing him. That would just complicate what was already an awkward meeting even further, Especially since she still hadn't quite worked out what she felt for the manservant.
Skort gave a short barking laugh, "I'm hardly going to rat on one of my fellows! Gods, you know the Guild as well as I do, how can you even ask?"
"Because it's not somebody from the Guild."
"A freelancer?" he looked interested, his expression quizzical. "Anyone good enough to steal from a bunch of adventurers probably isn't a freelancer, and even if they were, it pretty much goes without saying that they'd also be good enough for us not to know about them."
"The thing that stole from us wasn't a person, at least not in the normal sense. It was a demon."
"A demon?" his eyebrows shot up, "you mean a tiefling? There's a..."
"No, not a tiefling. I know what a tiefling looks like, and this sure as hell wasn't one of them. We're talking a full-on demon, huge horns, glowing eyes, the lot. Could have been an illusion, but that seems unlikely. But no, so far as we can tell, this was an honest-to-goodness demon, the kind that somebody summons. Know anything about that?"
"Uh, no, why would I? We're not magicians."
She sensed the brief hesitation in his voice, noted the shifting in his eyes as he looked away from her when he spoke. He might be good at lying to others, but not to her. He did know something, and she just had to find out what it was.
"Demonologists need illegal goods to cast their spells. If they don't get them from you, you'd probably know where they would get them. There's a pretty good chance you'd at least have heard rumours. And since you're not magicians, whoever did this is outside the Guild, and, really, you're not breaking any trust by telling who they are. Or who you suspect they are."